The peace John Carter brought to Helium and Thark is new and fragile. On the eve of a Red & Green festival to balm age-old hatreds, Dejah Thoris is kidnapped.

The ordeal triggers her lingering nightmares of abuse and helplessness at the hands of brutal Tharks. And the kidnapper is nightmare personified: Voro. He caters to a taste some green men never lost: the red meat of Helium women.